The Western devil is in the details of the plenum plan

BIO

Wang Xiangwei took up the role of Editor-in-Chief in February 2012, responsible for the editorial direction and newsroom operations. He started his 20-year career at the China Daily, before moving to the UK, where he gained valuable experience at a number of news organisations, including the BBC Chinese Service. In 1993, he moved to Hong Kong and worked at the Eastern Express before joining the South China Morning Post in 1996 as our China Business Reporter. He was subsequently promoted to China Editor in 2000 and Deputy Editor in 2007, a position he held for four years prior to being promoted to his current position. Mr. Wang has a Masters degree in Journalism, and a Bachelors degree in English.

The central government is accelerating efforts to set up Chinese versions of US federal circuit courts and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Photo: AFP

As the mainland leadership fleshes out the landmark blueprint adopted at the plenum of the Communist Party's 18th Central Committee and draw up details of how to implement the recommendations, it has made clear that China will never take the "evil route" of the Western-style democracy.

Indeed, even though the blueprint is supposed to take the economy to a new level of development and integration with the global community, leaders constantly warn that hostile foreign forces - namely the United States - will subvert communist rule by advocating the superiority of Western-style governance.

Ironically, Chinese leaders remain unabashed in learning from, or even copying, the functions of America's political system and judiciary as they try to overcome resistance from powerful vested interests and local authorities to centralise power and improve governance.

Meanwhile, the international community is paying close attention to the new national security committee, reportedly styled on the US National Security Council. The new body will bring together the police, military, intelligence and diplomatic services to deal with increasingly complex challenges at home and abroad.

But the security commission is not the only idea that the mainland is borrowing from the Americans.

As it attempts to improve the corruption-riddled judicial system and reduce rampant interference in courts by local officials, the central government is accelerating efforts to set up Chinese versions of US federal circuit courts and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

It seems that the leadership will move faster on setting up the circuit courts than the investigative bureau, which is still in the planning stage.

As usual, the plenum document was very vague in this regard, merely stating that senior leaders had called for a judicial jurisdiction system that was "relatively separate" from the administrative division.

But what is going to transpire will mark a significant development in the country's judicial system as the establishment of circuit courts and circuit prosecutor's offices can cover multiple administrative jurisdictions to reduce the influence from local authorities and promote the independence of the judiciary system.

Currently, the courts and prosecutors - called procuratorates on the mainland - at the provincial level and below have dual, parallel reporting systems to the higher level courts on judicial matters and to local authorities on administrative matters.

As the local authorities exercise greater influence over the appointment of judges and prosecutors and pay their salaries, they often intervene in how cases are handled and influence verdicts.

Rampant official corruption and entrenched local protectionism mean that courts are often criticised for giving biased verdicts and favouring defendants or plaintiffs who have local connections, particularly in cases involving more than one jurisdiction. This has greatly compromised judicial independence, leading often to biased or even incorrect convictions.

It is interesting to note that China already has in place a primitive version of circuit courts at the county level or below. It is popular in remote areas where judges travel to far-flung villages to settle minor civil or criminal cases.

In future, the authorities are expected to establish circuit courts and prosecutors in key cities that will cover multiple jurisdictions and report directly to the Supreme People's Court in Beijing.

Along similar thinking, the authorities are also exploring the possibility of setting up a national bureau of investigation to tackle major organised crimes, terrorism, and increasingly violent attacks in ethnic minority areas.

Just like the court system, police also have dual reporting functions with the local officials exercising greater influence over the appointments of the police chiefs. While the Ministry of Public Security has units to investigate organised and violent crime, it lacks manpower and resources so must rely on provincial police departments for many matters.

The new agency, if approved, could in the future set up its own regional offices, independent of the provincial local police forces.

The real problem is central government interference in the court system. How many miscarriages of justice happen in China because the Communist Party interferes whenever and wherever supposed party interests may be affected. All this nonsense about local officials ignores the fact that the central leaders want the courts to be political pawns. Only dreamers think otherwise.

lucifer Nov 26th 20135:55am

What is more important to effective operation of the courts is 1 - autonomy and 2 - the removal of the Politics and Law Committee (Party Supervisory body) from the courts. Until the courts operate autonomously with a well trained judiciary, the legal system will never function properly.

lexishk Nov 25th 20139:51am

This is a good report and I'd like to see more like it. It successfully avoids the "us and them" rhetoric that many pieces descend into, and looks beyond the Chinese govt's prideful/grandstanding/"for domestic consumption" denunciations of Western approaches to show the reality of which outside examples are being accepted and which rejected. This is a sensible way forward for China in general, and if it were promoted better it might serve to lower distrust between China and the rest of the world (including HK in the latter for present purposes).